Linguisticism
by cainesaw
Summary: I met Christophe DeLorne when I was little. I was 5, he was 4. I had light blond hair, his was almost black. He had coal eyes; mine were blue. We ran around the town square playing catch and he sucked. I must have sucked, too, though. The days our mums would take us to play piled up and, see, when you're young, language isn't a barrier. Nothing is.


I met Christophe DeLorne when I was little. I was 5, he was 4. I had light blond hair, his was almost black. He had coal eyes; mine were blue. We ran around the town square playing catch and he sucked. I must have sucked, too, though. The days our mums would take us to play piled up and, see, when you're young, language isn't a barrier, it's all about who's faster or who shoves harder or who tickles better or who's better at jumping fences.

He came to my house when my mum would pack my stuff to take me to my dad's and sometimes he'd go with me and stay the whole day. We'd watch Samurai Jack while my dad poured himself some beer and read _'Catcher in the Rye' _. I asked if I could read it once, he chuckled and told me he'd be sure to remember to lend it to me when I was older. Christophe went home after dinner, I stood at the gates and waved and we yelled 'bye's into the night until we couldn't see each other, until his small frame disappeared in the winter fog or the summer rain.

I came to his house every day, every time he wasn't busy, his mum read to us from French picture books and I looked at the pictures, picking up tiny phrases. 'Le petit lapin', 'une maison jolie', 'un chat malin', stuff like that.

He never wore socks and we played in the sand at the beach in the summer and it usually wound up raining but we went anyway. It was cold one day, there was a huge storm. Still, he stuck firmly to his sockless resolution, not shivering, not once. I told him he'd get a cold, he hugged me.

"Yeah well, if I get a cold," he mumbled into my shoulder, "you'll get one too."

Throwing sand at him, I laughed and he fell back and yelled and chased me around. He jumped on me and then sat me upright and, looking around suspiciously, leaned up and whispered secretively:

"Je t'aime," and I looked at him and laughed and he elbowed my stomach, "don't laugh! I'm being serious!"

"I love you too," I managed through chuckles and he still looked irritated so I kissed his cheek and we toppled back and he oofed while I crushed him, so I rolled off and we laughed.

"My mum said boys can't get married," he told me one day and he looked like he was grieving and I told him rules are dumb and we played soldiers. He was 7. I was 8. He fell down and yelped at my gunshot and I thought he was dying.

His face bore a pained expression and he held his stomach and I was convinced I had killed Christophe DeLorne.

"Tell my mother," he choked out, "tell my mother I hate her."

My thoughts rushed and this made no sense and I pulled his hands off his stomach to inspect the wound and there was none but I was convinced he was dying and his coal eyes looked even darker and he grabbed my hand and my 8-year-old body moved to do the most romantic and most lifesaving thing it could and my mouth was on his for a brief moment and he was healed and I think he cried a little bit.

We abandoned my backyard and went inside and my mum made us pasta. She scolded me when I got sauce on my face while Christophe piled all of it onto his fork and stuffed it in his mouth. He looked a right mess and I laughed at him.

His family moved back to France when I was 12 and I made him promise to call me every day. He did and we talked about school and he said he missed Britain and, one morning, I asked him what France was like.

"It's horrible!" he yelled, "you never want to live here."

"What are your teachers like?"

"They're slave drivers!" and he kept complaining, "we have around 5 pages of homework every day, it's so awful."

"Are you gonna be visiting for summer vacation?"

"I hope so. I can't seem to get my mother to take me. I really want to, though," I heard him shift around and whisper into the receiver, "I really miss you."

"Why are we whispering?" I whispered back, looking out the window. It was raining again. My dad's house had a great view of a hill, fields of flowers all the way to the horizon. It looked amazing on sunny days; poetic when it rained like this.

"My stupid mother's around," he hissed, "I don't want her hearing me."

"Ohh, okay. Hey, my dad wants me to go wash the dishes. I'll call you after lunch, okay?" I heard a hum in approval and continued, "Bye."

Hanging up, I felt a bit lost, like I dropped a chunk of my flesh into a pit of lava. I missed him. Walking into the kitchen, dad was sitting at the table, scoping the news, just like every morning. He noticed me and smiled that fatherly smile I grew used to.

"Son," he said, "I have a surprise for you."

I read _'Catcher in the Rye'_ in 4 hours. I made a vow to read it every year of my life. When I was 14, I told Christophe I was reading it again. He said it was stupid.

"Why would you waste your time reading the same book over and over again?"

"My dad told me it feels different as you get older."

"So does jerking off, it doesn't mean you should do it every day just to check."

"It's not like that, though. You should read it."

After convincing Christophe DeLorne to read the amazing masterpiece known as _'Catcher in the Rye'_, I waited all day for him to call me. Instead, the call came at 2AM.

"I changed my mind," was the only thing he said.

"Huh?"

"It's a good book. I still miss you," and he hung up.

Day by day, I grew more and more convinced Christophe was not human. He was a higher species, more knowledgeable, he was interesting and I was dull and he was painfully amazing and I liked sleeping and he liked TPing his school.

My parents moved to the US soon after, dad got a new job and mum wanted to go as well. He lived in Vermont and mum and I were in Colorado.

On the 20th of November in 2007, when I was 16, he came to Colorado, too, with his mother. Not only did he come to Colorado, he went straight to my house, knocked on the door at 9PM. I opened it. He still looked a right mess. His dark circles looked like he hadn't slept in weeks and he grinned at me and I noticed how his smile went more to the right and I hugged him and laughed into his hair.

"You reek of smoke, dear god!" I choked out through laugher.

"Oh shut up," he answered and we talked all night.

"What about school?" I asked him.

"Well we're in the same class if that's what you're asking."

"Really? Ha! Amazing."

I started smoking too and we snuck out behind the school because cigarettes weren't allowed in the school courtyard. He laughed shallowly at the teachers and I wondered where I stood with him.

"You know," he began, "we could just go to New York and get married there," and goddammit if I didn't know then.

"And how do you plan to get to New York?"

"We'll manage."

We left it at that.

Passing notes in class became a hobby and I still maintained my high grades and he failed to do so but I didn't care. Grades were dumb. His eyes were still like coal and everything was fine.

We finished school and the blessed days passed. The days where there was no responsibility. Then pressure from all sides set in, like I was in a compressed box, water all around, squished uncomfortably. Except the water was my family.

"I can't take it anymore!" he told me one day, "I wanna get out of here."

"And go where?"

"…," he was quiet for a bit, "anywhere," he settled, "just not here."

"Oh."

On the 20th of November in 2012, when I was 21, he appeared at my window at 2AM, holding his luggage and throwing pebbles at my window and I was convinced Christophe DeLorne was absolutely insane.

He told me to pack and he waved two train tickets in front of me and I never consented to join him in his expedition but it seemed better than job interviews and my parents asking what I was going to do with my life. So I packed.

I scribbled a note down while he yelled at me to hurry up. I signed it hastily and quickly sneaked into my mum's room and gave her a peck on the cheek.

'_I've gone to find better things. Don't call the police. We'll keep in touch. I promise I'll call you every day if you promise to let me have this' _and I rushed out the window, throwing my bags out of it before leaping an impressive 1 meter.

We hauled our luggage, though, to the bay, waving a goodbye to America and France and he said we should go to the UK. I wondered if the train drove through the channel and how long we'd take to get there.

They say that, when you're young, everything makes sense, there's no confusion. I remember my childhood through blurred footage and I remember teenhood much differently. And it's so easy when you're young, it's so easy to exist and not feel the implications of the real world and Christophe DeLorne existed and I did too so I guess we never grew up at all. And I wondered what kind of higher being he was while he laughed and chased me through a corn field and we might have been banished from adulthood but I didn't complain.

I sat on the field and stared at the sky, wondering how fortunate we were to be able to exist. How lucky it was to be able to exist. Because the sky will stay the same long after we are gone and it has stayed the same long after many others have gone, numbers, masses, nothing but statistics by now and we are a doomed race but goddamn everything I've ever done if that was going to stop me from existing because we are alive. We are the byproduct of billions of years of evolution, we are made to survive and I held the universe in my chest and ran around with a wooden sword, laughing with an equally alive Christophe DeLorne, existing in this void of reality, surviving definitely.


End file.
